Chapter 11.3 Business is not righteous! ! !

Eventually, Bai Duanduan felt deflated, she looked at Ji Lin, “I heard from my colleagues that you never advocate corporate settlement. As their legal attorney, your plan is to let the company have the upper hand in the end every time. Once the employee did anything wrong, you will be ruthless to the very end, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation. Even if it is a ‘settlement’, it is actually an unilateral victory for you. I really shouldn’t be so naive as to come to you and talk about getting you to back off. The word humanity doesn’t exist in your dictionary.”

“The company actually hired you for a fraction of the attorney’s fees and effort, and you could have easily handled the matter.”

Bai Duanduan couldn’t help thinking of her father, with a sore feeling she said, “Xu Zhixin is wrong, but it is not that he has never thought of asking for leave through the normal process. If the company was more humane at that time, instead of snarling at him, they could have been more calm and understanding of his situation, notice the plight of Xu Zhixin’s family, and offered some help then maybe he would not have at all taken the risk to do this kind of thing…”

Bai Duanduan’s remarks were almost a one-sided complaint, she didn’t expect Ji Lin to pay any attention to herself anymore, yet to her surprise, Ji Lin opened his mouth instead.

“Do you think being amiable is great? Does business operation management depend on friendly human behavior? If you believe in humanity so much, then why are you still a lawyer?” His voice changed from the coldness of a moment ago to full-on sarcasm and contempt, “You always thought that this case did not have the best outcome, didn’t you? You think it’s not economical at all to spend money and time to find a lawyer like me. You always use whether it’s economical or not as a criterion to judge. I believe that when you give legal advice to your clients, you consider the same way, if this solution is cost-effective or not?”

Bai Duanduan frowned as she got a bit angry, “Shouldn’t we as lawyers give reasonable and cost-effective solutions? Isn’t it faster and cheaper to settle than to persuade clients to spend money and time on litigation? Wouldn’t it amount to a litigation scam if you drag a case for no purpose? I know it’s better for lawyers to persuade clients to litigate than to settle inorder to earn more money for representation, but I can’t do that, and I’m not going to cheat my clients out of their attorney fees.”

“You don’t understand what litigation is all about.” Ji Lin gave a cold laugh, “The meaning of litigation is the bottom line of the principle of justice. Should we balance the cost of firing people and the value for money and let those malicious employees off easily because it’s troublesome and not cost-effective?”

“You think companies just like firing people? Firing anyone, even if you fire a fool, means bringing chaos and disruption to your own business. Enforcing the decision to fire an employee is tough. A fired employee with a grudge may retaliate against the business, and a friend of that employee who is still employed may similarly disagree with the company.”

“Dismissal also means that there are vacancies in your company. The company must go through the process of recruiting, hiring, and grooming the new employees again. This takes a lot of energy and there is no guarantee that the newly recruited employees will work any good. So many companies are forced to have no choice, in the end, for the cost-effectiveness you are pursuing, they can only make do with those employees who are not so good and don’t bother to expel them. But is this right?

Ji Lin looked at Bai Duanduan “You work in the field of labour law, but what surprises me is that you don’t understand the operations of running a business at all, you don’t know anything about business models, and you don’t understand what is the mindset of business owners.”

Bai Duanduan subconsciously argued, “I don’t like representing businesses, I’ve represented only employees because they are more vulnerable and I just want to help the more vulnerable groups to fight for their legal rights!”

“Even if you represent employees, you need to at least put yourself in the shoes of your client’s opponent and try to understand their struggle. Business is complex, and running a business depends on the concerted efforts from all the different departments, and if anything goes wrong in any department, the business in a whole would be affected. Do you think that just because the owner of the business is rich, he or she must be powerful? Employees must be weak in all situations? But you don’t consider how much effort the owners have to put into running a business, how much pressure they have to bear, how much they have to sacrifice for their work, how many drinking parties they have to attend and how much they can’t help themselves? Just because they are rich, they should continue on bearing on more?”

“Business owners are richer, have higher social status and more resources than their employees, but they have got all this and everything more by working legally to keep their business afloat. In this case, the wrong person is Xu Zhixin, so why should the business owner have to go and pay for it? Why should the business owner have to pay for the settlement? To make considerations for him? If one who is poor is justified? If one who is weak is justified?”

Ji Lin’s brow was slightly furrowed, “I hate people like you who claim that employees are more vulnerable and need protection of their rights. But the truth is, very often, it’s employees like Xu Zhixin who are constantly ruining a good potential business.”

Bai Duanduan pursed her lips, “I know you want to say that if employees like Xu Zhixin are not punished, more and more people will follow suit. Once Jin Guang Electronics and Xu Zhixin reconcile, it will become a template for more and more employees to drill loopholes like this. But I think this is unrealistic, because in fact, most employees want to work well, and not so many people are bad by nature and even less not so many people will encounter such bad fortune as Xu Zhixin. Xu Zhixin is wrong, but your accusation against him is too serious. How can a single employee like him destroy the whole enterprise?”

“Good rules can make people who want to make mistakes dare not to make mistakes, and flaws in the rules can make a good person into a bad person. If Jin Guang Electronics tolerated Xu Zhixin’s behavior and made a weak settlement, yes, indeed, it is possible that the number of people who follow suit will not be so many, but the rest of the normal hard-working employees who abide by the the company’s sick leave management rules of the staff, wouldn’t it hurt their feelings? Wouldn’t they feel unfair? Can it be assured that all future dismissals would be uneventful and can be settled without a court case? What if employees’ start to think like Xu Zhixin was so outrageous, but he was able to settle and receive compensation, so why can’t I? Once such a group consciousness starts, it will be difficult for the management to control.”

Ji Lin coldly swept a glance at Bai Duanduan, “You don’t have the slightest sense of corporate management thinking at all, how can you be a labor dispute lawyer?”

Bai Duanduan was speechless and unable to fight back. Because of her own personal experience, Bai Duanduan always tended to take the side of the employees and was more likely to feel sympathetic towards them. She had never put herself in the shoe of business owner and understood their thought process like Ji Lin before, but now that she had been mocked by Ji Lin, although she could not accept it emotionally, she was touched deep inside.

She felt very embarrassed, not only because of Ji Lin’s directness, but also because she suddenly realised that although she had always warned herself that there was no position to take as a lawyer except only neutrality and objectivity. She had unconsciously tended to walk into a stereotype based on her own personal experience.

Although the attitude was bad, what Ji Lin said was right.

Since the day Bai Duanduan had become a lawyer, she had never taken on a case representing a business owner, and Lin Hui had explicitly hinted to her more than a few times that she needed to do more cases for corporate clients, but of course Lin Hui was thinking from the perspective of revenue generation. Business owners are always more generous than workers and communicate better. Once a good co-operation is established, they become a potential source of cases in the future. In the past, Bai Duanduan always scoffed at Lin Hui’s words, but now, after being humiliated by Ji Lin on her face, Bai Duanduan seriously considered it for the first time in her life.

If you only take on a certain type of people’s specific cases, your vision will always be limited. Shouldn’t you really give up your prejudice and try representing a company?

After Ji Lin said those words, he obviously didn’t want to talk with her anymore. He stood at the other corner of the elevator, looking at the numbers that kept jumping up and down.

He was really a very straightforward person, and now his facial expression was clearly exuding words of “Great! Finally, we’re almost at the floor! I don’t want to stay with this woman anymore!” The expression really was not the least bit hidden……

Of course, Bai Duanduan also does not want to stay even a minute longer with a man like Ji Lin. Just when the elevator was about to arrive at the floor, suddenly there was a loud clang sound and the elevator stopped abruptly. At such a critical moment, the elevator actually broke down ! ! !

Author’s note: Bai Duanduan and Ji Lin are actually very different in their positions and tendencies because of their different experiences. Bai Duanduan is pro-employee and Ji Lin is pro-corporate.

As for Bai Duanduan’s view that litigation should be cost-effective for clients, and Ji Lin’s opinion that litigation means to desperately fight for the bottom line of the principle of justice, regardless of everything. These are actually two quite big schools of thought ~ actually they are both right, but in reality most lawyers are like Bai Duanduan and they advise their clients from the perspective of cost-effectiveness ~ this also depends mostly on the choice of clients ~  (not all lawyers have such coquettish way of dealing as Ji Lin ~)

[Small Theatre]

Reader  @Jin Dao Da Caiya’s

Ji Lin: Duanduan, I like you.

Bai Duanduan: Sorry, what do you like about me? Can I change it?

Ji Lin: I like your appearance and ability to play professionally.

Bai Duanduan: Humph, dog man, I’m also good at fighting. Come here, take a punch from me!